Two But Same
by srwkwrite
Summary: Alfred had enrolled himself in Hetalia University, a university that had branches all over the world. On his first night there,he bumped into a boy. The next,he bumped into a girl who looked alike to the boy so he assumed they were twins.Worst thing is, he has crushes on both of them.But the truth is...?[Mainly USUK]
1. Chapter 1

WARNING/AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am not an expert on gender identity nor sexuality . I might have portrayed them wrongly, as my only resource would be the Internet. I am not American ,so I apologise if you cringe or mentally correct me when my spelling is different. Therefore , I have exactly no idea how the education system in the USA works and at what age you're supposed to enter kindergarten and graduate from secondary school. Also, I did not have a beta reader to proofread this.I mean no harm or offence regarding the contents of this

* * *

Alfred was a tad bit excited. He'd been through this kind of day at least 14 times. Maybe. Maybe more, or less. Anyways, today marked the day of his freedom. Well, not really. But free from his mother's ramblings (at least, until summer or winter break arrives), his father's constant rants and his sister's painful hockey stick.

But he wasn't excited for his freedom. Oh no, he wasn't.

He was more excited about his university. The Hetalia University. Why it was called 'Hetalia', it wasn't stated on the school website. It sounded undoubtedly silly, but hey, it's what the specialty of the school counts.

You see, Hetalia University's quite well-known for being a picky university. Not in a bad sense. The university's entrance exam consists of two papers and multiple questions. The first paper would be for your academic qualification. The second was on how accepting you were ,of the LGBTQ community. Both papers were vital ,especially the latter.

Alfred Fitzgerald Jones was quite excited for Hetalia University, due to the fact that the university gives privilege to everybody, takes no shit from the LGBTQ-phobic society and therefore, it was perfect for him, a panromantic and a pansexual. He would be treated equally (unlike in high school ,where his face had visited the toilet thousands of times), be able to walk around campus without having to worry about getting beaten to a pulp or having eggs thrown at him (which wasn't quite the experience in middle school, but hey, he dealt with it and he's proud of it). He didn't need to worry about the inequality and teachers who would always choose sides (It was just his grudge on the teachers for being unfair and preferring students of certain labels).

"You sure these are all of it?" his sister, Madeline, asked. The American nodded with a smile to his sister, who was taller than him by 3 inches. All right, it seemed odd. But Madeline had just started her transition a year ago, when they were both high school seniors. Alfred had to admit, she was beautiful and was happier when she did. And he was grateful that their parents weren't the typical asshole Catholic parents. Instead, his parents just embraced it ,shrugged it off and said, "so long you help us out with the house chores and paying your tuition fees".

He had reasoned with her to apply for his university, so he wouldn't feel lonely, but Madeline had already applied for the Canadian branch of the university, whilst Alfred applied for the branch in New York. But it didn't dampen his spirits, knowing that there would be an exchange program once a year, for a full semester. He could see his sister in the next semester, then.

Alfred turned his back to face his mother , who had teary eyes and a red nose. "Come on,Mum.I'll be back for summer and winter break .Besides, I'll be going to the branch in New York,it's just a couple of hours drive. You should be crying for Maddie over here", he motioned his thumb to the taller and older twin.

"Who said I was crying over you? Oh come here,Alfie. We'll miss you both. Send us a text once a while, all right? Don't forget to eat!" his mother ran up to him, proceeding to hug him tightly ,letting her snot run down his bomber jacket. "Mum,you're ruining my jacket!" he complained jokingly. He looked at the shorter woman and smiled sadly. He wouldn't be seeing her or his father in months.

He took in the details of his mother's appearance. Her head reached his shoulders, (she was tiny, and seeing her with his father made them look really cute), her bouncy , platinum blonde hair that suited her russet brown eyes in a certain way. Under the current lighting and the sun, her brown eyes reminded him of honey. He loved how brown eyes would look golden under the sun or any light source, unlike his shade of blue that only would only get a couple shades lighter.

Behind his mother was his weary father. Alfred could see how tired the man was. But it didn't stop his father from being good-looking. Oh no, his father still looked charming.

He didn't need to take in the appearance of his father. Others had said that Matthew ( before she underwent transition and finally embraced herself as Madeline) and Alfred were the spitting image of their father. He could see that as well.

Unlike Madeline (whose shade of hair was between the parents' hair colour shade), Alfred's hair was the exact same shade. Dirty blond hair ,accompanied by a stubborn cowlick that he had inherited from his father. Alfred had also inherited his father's sky blue eyes and his athletic physique. The only difference between them would be the greying strands of hair in his father's hair , the wrinkles on his father's face and the height difference, in which, Alfred was taller by 4 inches.

"Hey , Dad, gonna miss you," he let go of his mother's embraced and turned to his father. Oh ,how he wished that his father wasn't ill. He wished that his father wasn't stuck in a wheelchair until his death and he wished that he could just watch his father play rugby for the last time. While frowning sadly, he hugged his father ,muttering 'I love you' repeatedly.

He stepped away for his sister's turn to bid her farewells and it was just as tear-jerking as seeing his mother wailing when his father was declared immobile.

"Now, you two, just because I'm bound to a wheelchair, that doesn't stop me from chasing the both of you around with a stick if the both of you fuck around in university! I'll have your mother install motors and controllers on this blasted thing just so I can smack the both of you with this cane!" his father jokingly said. Alfred and Madeline just laughed it off as they waved goodbye ,before entering Madeline's red SUV.

Looking out of the window of his sister's SUV, he found enough time to yell another "I love you both! I'll update you guys with everything that's happening around the campus!" whilst having tears rolling down his cheeks. "I'll send you postcards from New York! I'll force Maddie to send ones from Canada too!" he yelled, trembling and choking on his own sobs.

"We know!" he heard them yell faintly, as they couldn't see their double storey house anymore. Alfred rolled the window up and plopped down to his seat. He mumbled several times that Madeline swore it was fainter than her yelling.

"You know, winter break" were Madeline's only words of comfort.

"I know, winter break" were Alfred's only words of reply, before staring longingly outside of the window.

* * *

The road trip was long and boring. Thank the Lord for making Madeline a wonderful sister who had installed a mini-television in the car. Unlike Alfred, Madeline loved nature and would rather listen to music. Alfred, however, had plugged in a pen drive into one of the USB ports and watched several episodes of Pushing Daisies, had a marathon of Supernatural Season 9 and a marathon of Narnia's film adaptations. That still didn't made up for how long the drive was so he resumed his television-watching time by continuing his marathon with BBC Sherlock ,Merlin and Marvel films.

Needless to say, Madeline had to fight the urge to smack her brother when he was watching The Avengers.

"Alfred, I swear to God, will you please stop moving around in your seat?! I'll throw away your pen drive if you don't stop!" and that did it. Alfred wanted to protest but he had learnt the hard way of never, _ever,_ piss a Canadian off. It was worse than pissing an Briton off if you insulted the royal family.

"How much longer?" he muttered, like a sulking child. Madeline shook her head at the immaturity of her brother, "An hour, at this rate. We left Wisconsin about 14 hours ago so, just watch the television and stop moving around like there's a zombie apocalypse". All she got from him was an "all right"

Minutes passed and Madeline noticed that Alfred wasn't watching the television ,despite his eyes seeming like they're glued to the screen. And he was frowning.

"What's wrong?" she asked, knowing full well about what was wrong. Alfred turned to his right , sighing heavily as they passed by houses .

"I'll miss all of you. Yeah,I know, 14 years ago,I yelled 'I won't miss you ever' but I will, Maddie ,I will. I'll miss Dad,I'll miss Mum,I'll miss those horses that keep coming into our backyard since Dad refused to put up a fence. I'll miss the smell of Mum's garden, the taste of her own home-grown strawberries, her cooking, I'll miss Dad's laugh, his scolding and Dad's argument-losing to Mum. I'll miss your stupid hockey stick and skiing skills and I'll miss throwing a pillow at your face. I'll get homesick, I know that, but I can't afford driving 15 hours everyday back to Wisconsin so how'll I get over that? I won't get over being a worrywart too"

"That was the most sentimental thing you've said throughout your lifetime, Al" Madeline chuckled. "Shut up, I'm being sentimental here" Alfred pouted again, but holding his own chuckle at the realisation of how he'll be on his own from now on.

"You're growing up, aren't you?" Madeline ruffled her brother's hair ,who in turn, replied her with a "Oh shut it, you're my twin anyways, don't act like you're a century older than I am!" and a playful shove. In a matter of hours, Alfred would be alone in the New York branch of Hetalia University and so will Madeline in the Canadian branch. The very least they both could've done would be spending the next hour reminiscing their childhood and talk to each other long enough so they wouldn't get homesick easily.

"Al,look! I think we're at the New York border" Madeline exclaimed, noticing a change of scenery.

They've been to New York plenty of times. Mostly because of his both of his parents being New Yorker-born. Alfred and Madeline had lived in New York for three years before moving to Wisconsin due to their mother's job as an engineer. The last time they've been to New York was last winter, to celebrate Christmas as a hotel their father's friend, managed.

His applying to Hetalia University was partially because of that reason. If they didn't sell their old house, Alfred wouldn't need to stay at the dorms. But then again, Alfred was a pansy twonk that gets scared easily so Madeline just told him to stay and the dorms (more like drilled it into his brain).

Oh how he missed the atmosphere of New York. He felt Madeline sped up and stepping on the oil ,probably because she was tired of driving and staying inside the car.

It was night time when they were surrounded by tall buildings with flashing lights, advertising products and merchandises that seemed generally useless as well as vehicles that drove past them, fast. Alfred stared out of the window, taking notice of the crowd that had neon-colour-haired punks, street musicians, people who deemed to have no sense of fashion as well as people shopping in one shop and another. There were couples too, but they kept their affections limited to holding hands and nuzzling.

"I love New York City" Alfred mumbled. "I know, you say that every time Dad and Mum bring us here" Madeline giggled. Alfred blasted the radio of Madeline's SUV , and fortunately for him, the radio was playing Ed Sheeran's SING. Alfred sang along to the song with Madeline rolling her eyes.

She took out her GPS and set it for Hetalia University's campus and drove according to the GPS, with a few curses and a terrified male American after Madeline found out that the GPS was outdated and brought them to several dead ends.

They eventually gave up at the 6th dead end, and managed to ask a redhead smoker for directions.

"Oh, Hetalia University, eh? You're a freshman ,I assume?" the man asked, with a faint Scottish accent in his voice. Thick, dark red, eyebrows sat above his startling forest green eyes, accompanied by his red hair that seemed to be blazing fire."A'right , from here, turn left a the first junction, go straight until you're at the crossroads then turn right. Go straight and straight and straight until you find a huge-arsed dome that has a neon signboard saying 'Welcome to Hetalia University' with the Status of Liberty , the Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower ,the Tower of Pisa and the Great Wall of China surrounding the dome. Pass by that and you'll see a guardhouse which happens to be the entrance of the campus" the Scotsman answered.

"Merci, monsieur!" exclaimed Madeline, unaware of slipping French into their conversation. "Ah, may I please know your name?" Madeline tilted her head. _Oh,not that,please Madeline, save me from this,_ Alfred thought, knowing fully what his sister was doing.

"My name? Allistair Kirkland. And don't think I don't know what you're trying to do. I'm quite sure I'm older than both of you by 25 years" Allistair smirked. "Oh ,sorry, you must've been through that so many times then" Madeline chuckled. "With this appearance? Well, yes. Anyways, you'd be best on your way, the two of you" the Scotsman continued.

"Also, if you see someone with thick eyebrows, like caterpillars, and green eyes like a mixture of a forest and sea, tell that person I said 'hello', will you?" Allistair asked. Alfred nodded, before saying goodbye to the man who his sister had tried to match him with.

The man's silhouette was all that was left that they could see, before Alfred screamed at Madeline. "What the hell was that?! Maddie, I told you, I'll find one on my own! I am perfectly capable of finding someone to get laid with, geez! You almost hitched me up with a man that's 45 years old!" Alfred jokingly scolded his sister.

"Oh come on, Al, you have to admit, that man had one of the very few fetish of yours. Accent? Check. Good-looking and young? Check" Madeline teased. "But yeah, that was wrong considering I almost hooked you up with a 45 year old man that could've had a kid our age, you have the right to scream at me. But not now, please,Al?" Madeline pleaded.

"Yeah, sue, I'll scream at you over the phone because I'm pretty sure your hockey stick is at the back and you'll chase me around when I get my revenge anyways" Alfred shrugged. "Also, I have a fetish for a _Manchester_ accent, Madeline,I thought you were my twin! How could you forget that?" he sobbed dramatically, but laughing along.

"Oh shut up, we're almost there,anyways, Al".

* * *

Alfred should've known that most of the newcomers would arrive at night. And his sister's flight would be in 3 hours. He had offered to drive her to the airport but she brushed him off with , "I'll use the taxi, you just stay here for the semester and make sure my car doesn't get a single scratch" and off she went with a yellow taxi that brought her out of the campus ground.

All around him were freshmen that didn't know where to go or where the dorm is. It made him question how big the place was or where the facilitators were. Surely, there would be older students here,right? Or were there just a shit ton of students that had just arrived?

He dragged his baggage on its wheels and slung his bag pack over his shoulder. He didn't bring much, just his (very little amount) of clothes and his gadgets. And his collection of video games ,a PSP,a 3DS, a DS and a PSVita. How does he have all of these, you ask? From his 16th birthday, in which, his parents got him a PSP, his aunt got him a 3DS without knowing his parents would get him a PSP, and another aunt that thought she would be the only one to give him the present of a game console.

Walking down the pathway , he noticed that there were foreign students that had enrolled here as well and from the looks of it, the main reason why they were still out here was because some of them had communication problems with their supposed roommates.

_Please give me a roommate that won't mind me playing video games all night long,_ he prayed. He must've not seen where he was going because he bumped into someone that was shorter than him. By almost a head.

"Oh, I apologise, I wasn't watching where I was going," the person said almost immediately, and frankly, Alfred wasn't even aware of bumping into someone else. "Nah, that's all right, wasn't watching where I was goin—" he wanted to apologise and _fuck his attention span_, _are those caterpillars?!_

"If you're going to ask about these 'caterpillars', I'd rather be on my way to my dorm room, please" the voice said. There was a hint of a Lancaster accent. Yes, all right, he admits that he spends too much time watching BBC that he recognises accents , all kinds of them, and Lancaster accent was his second favourite accent in total.

"Ah urh ahhhh" _what the fuck,Alfred?! Get your head in the game,dumbass!_ He yelled to himself mentally, mumbling profanities a himself. He took a moment to glance and take in the appearance of the other.

And _damn,_ he was grateful. A petite figure with a pale complexion and a spray of freckles that made them look cute. A button nose that fitted their round face and a black jacket with pink stripes that clung onto their figure ,along with a pair of blue jeans and green converses. But what stroke Alfred the most were the huge, forest-sea green eyes that seemed to be glowing in the dark, probably because it was complimented by the dark and thick eyebrows that could've been mistaken for tattooed eyebrows. Actually, he was quite captivated by them and went into a few-seconds trance, as if he was wandering in the middle of a forest whilst being underwater due to the forest-sea green hue.

The person moved out of his way and started to jog to the other direction. They must've found their dorm room already, then. It took Alfred ten seconds to snap out of his trance ,quick enough to ask (more like yell) for the person's name.

The person stopped their jog for a while, before running off while yelling back with an "Arthur!".

* * *

It took him an hour to find his dorm room and the room PIN code. He punched them in quickly, since he was exhausted from running around the campus, dragging his baggage and bag pack. The air-conditioning in the lobby of his dorm block managed to cool him off but it didn't freshen him up so he had to take a break every two minutes.

Opening the door, he was greeted by the scent of grilled rib steak. He didn't realise how hungry he was until the scent hit him. His stomach growled loudly but he shrugged it off. He dropped everything next to his assigned bed and took off his shows before jumping onto the bed. The mattress was quite soft and comfortable.

Alfred took notice that his roommate had already decorated their side of the room. All over his roommate's wall were posters of Australian films and he figured out that his roommate fancied Chris Hemsworth since all of the posters had Chris in them.

Jett Kirkland was the name of his roommate. Could it be that that was the person that the man named Allistair was talking about? But forest-sea green eyes...oh shit, could it be the person he bumped into earlier ?! _Shit, Al!_ He cursed himself.

The American blond decided to subdue his hunger by popping Snicker bars and Cadbury chocolate bars, then deciding that it was time to sleep. He has two days left to set everything up before having to attend classes and freshmen orientation. He took a quick shower before slipping into pyjamas and by the time he went back to his bed, he somewhat knew his roommate wouldn't be back until the next morning so hopped off to bed and drifted asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note:**

Couldn't get a beta reader to proofread and correct my grammar and spellings. Also, **as a reminder,** I do not come from or live in the United States, therefore, I spell the words the way I've learnt it and you'll just have to cope with this kind of spelling.

I stress that all my resources on the LGBTQ community comes from the Internet (because the society I live in is so fucking phobic) and there is a lack of resources on genderfluidity, thus, the way I interpret or portray Arthur/Elizabeth is based off of what I could find out on the Internet. I apologise if I portrayed them wrongly.

* * *

Alfred's head throbbed when he saw bright light. That was all he needed to groan and sit up. He stretched his arms and legs , cracking his knuckles and slapped his back. He let out a loud yawn and ruffled his own blond hair and swept it away from his eyes so that it wouldn't block his view.

"Oh, you're finally awake, eh, yank?" Alfred was startled for a while, before realising that he wasn't in his old bedroom. A good night's sleep had made him forget that he was no longer in his cosy bedroom, far away in Wisconsin. He was currently in a dorm room on the campus of Hetalia University , in the state of New York.

He turned to the voice and was greeted by the sight of a boy his age, who had a muscular physique that reminded him of a surfer's. Tanned skin and amber eyes that reminded him of honey and hair of the colour of russet. The boy had slit back hair that must've been gelled or sprayed and like Alfred himself, had stubborn strands of hair that stood out proudly.

The boy had an accent that he recognised as a foreign accent. It wasn't any of the English accent he was fond of, nor was it an accent of any European country that he had been to. The boy didn't seem like he was Asian nor a white from Africa. However, he recognised that accent from watching National Geography Channel way too much.

"You're Australian? Melbourne or Perth? I'm Alfred Fitzgerald Jones, by the way, but call me Alfred" Alfred extended his hand to his roommate, who he assumed, was Australian. It would make sense , considering his roommate has a plush toy of a koala pointing middle fingers with both of its hands. Not to mention the posters of Chris Hemsworth that kind of give away his roommate's obsession with the actor.

"Melbourne. Name's Jett Kirkland. The koala, posters and accent gave away my nationality, huh? But how did you spot on the state I'm from? National Geography?" Jett shook his roommate's hand and tapped the post of his own bed. He got a nod from the American and laughed quietly. "Thought so. It's _always _National Geography. Australia's has too much dangerous animals, _of course _it's National Geography_"_ Jett waved it off.

"Yep, anyways, did you unpack all of your stuff yet?" Alfred asked, looking over his own . A month before, he had sent boxes of his belongings to Hetalia University so he wouldn't have to carry much during his arrival. It seemed that they had sent his boxes to the room by the time it was morning.

His boxes stood on top of each other, each with a label on them. Most of the boxes had labels which stated, 'Textbooks', 'Books' , 'Gadgets', and well, 'DIY'. The 'DIY' box had IKEA furniture in it , if Alfred decided that Jett and himself needed an extra chair or a bookshelf. He'll dissemble them when he'll leave for a break and will assemble them again when he gets back.

"Yeah, unpacked them like the day before yesterday. You need help with yours? Seems like a handful" Jett waved over to the stack of boxes that sat at the end of Alfred's bed, next to his baggage and bag pack. "Nah, most of 'em are just books and I'll just dump them in the trunk. Where's your trunk?" Alfred wondered. His trunk was next to his bed, visible from Jett's view. "Mine are down here, under the bed, y'know, in case some dick rummages through our crap" Jett smirked.

The Australian got up and walked over to the door , turning back to look over at his new friend, "I'm going out for a bit with my cousins since you don't need any help here, bye, yank" Jett bade, before stepping outside of the room and closing the door on Alfred , who was left alone in the room, his company kept by his roommate's belongings, Chris Hemsworth (that's going to be their inside joke, then) , his trunk, his bag pack, his baggage and his unopened stack of labelled boxes.

Sighing as he lowered his body down onto the floor to start unpacking, he took out a penknife from his pencil case after opening his bag pack. He slid the penknife across the tape that he put on every box he had, and put it away safely into his embarrassing Ben 10 pencil case (which wasn't his idea, mind you! It was Madeline's prank! Not that he disliked the pencil case...)

He opened the first box on his left that was labelled , 'Books' , and took all of his textbooks, novels and comic books one by one, sorting them in size and the series. He grabbed his comic books and sorted them according to the dates they were published. After touching the cover of almost all the comic books he brought with him, he turned his attention to the dusty novels on his right.

It was going to be a long morning, he decided.

* * *

By the time he was officially done with unpacking his belongings, it was 2 PM. He managed to hold his hunger by snacking on the Snicker bars and munching on the potato crisps (which didn't really help, all it did was made his lips dry and salty) that was in the mini fridge at the corner of his room. He assumed that Jett had put it there , since there was a note on each of the snack which had said "By the size and weight of your boxes, I'm assuming that you won't be going out of the room for a while so I managed to get ya some snacks. You owe me $13" on each of them.

Giving himself a pat on the shoulder, Alfred decided to take a bath because God knows how awful he smelt and how sweaty he was. The bath didn't have to take long, if it wasn't for the horrid smell that still stuck to him despite four times of bathing with the help of a bathing brush to scratch his skin until it turned red and sore.

Drying himself off, Alfred looked over his clothing and chose a Captain America shirt that would be under his navy blue jacket . Alfred picked out a pair of jeans and quickly slipped them on after giving himself the daily procedure of self-esteem, in which, dear reader, our favourite American goes up to his portable mirror and checked himself out like a narcissist, giving himself compliments such as "hey boy, where ya going later?" and not forgetting his favourite self-compliment, "damn boy, you're looking fine today like always". He decided that he should really stop or else someone would walk in one day, and call him the next Narcissus. Not that he isn't.

Though he knew that his stubborn strand of hair (which he nicknamed 'Nantucket' ,much to his twin's dismay) would already stand out and annoy other people, since it annoyed him too, he gelled it and sprayed his hair. Giving himself another look in the mirror to adjust his hair and check himself out, he decided that it was time to walk around the campus and get accustomed to it.

Alfred put in his earphones and plugged it into his iPod and played an entire album of Infinity On High. Playing around with his iPod, he increased the volume and bobbed his head to the beat of the songs. As the song played, he whistled the tune and walked out of the dorm's lobby and into the courtyard of in his part of the campus.

He left the Block A of the freshmen's dormitory area and walked towards the archway which was right in front of him. Taking in the appearance of the freshmen's dormitory area, he began to wonder how the founder even had the money to build all these.

Alfred had to go to the main office but he had no idea where(which he blamed his printer for running out of ink when he wanted to print the map, which was of course, his own fault). So he tried the next best thing and he looked around the area.

There were other students in the courtyard besides him. Most of them were his age while others were older. The students were huddled in groups and Alfred noted a group that consisted of girls, squealing over whatever one of them had on their iPad. "Look at that! I told you they would be together, but you didn't listen! Now you owe me $15" a long-haired and green eyed brunette said to the tiny ravenette girl who Alfred assumed, was Asian.

"Hey, it wasn't me! It was Lili!" the ravenette then pointed to a smaller girl, whose hair was blonde and had soft, green eyes. The girl seemed reserved and quiet as she shook her head frantically but her lips were twitching into a grin. "Oh nein, it was Mei! I was on Elizaveta's side" he dubbed the girl ,Lili, and for some reason, he knew she was lying.

Alfred walked over to them ,waving and greeting them with a simple "Hi!" and was replied with a "Hello" from all of them. He ruffled his hair and gave them a sheepish smile before asking , "Do any of you know where the main office is? I kind of forgot to print the map and couldn't find the directory"

Elizaveta (was that her name?), just smiled and pointed at the archway. "Turn right after the archway then just go straight. There'll be a park at the end of the pathway , so after reaching the park, go northwest and you'll see three blocks . Behind the blocks would be the sophomore dormitory area but next to it is the main office. It's kind of confusing so would you like me to send a file of the map to your phone?" offered but Alfred shook his head. "Nah,I'm good. So right, straight, northwest, go behind?" he asked the girls and they reassured him with a nod.

Alfred thanked them and ran straight out of the freshmen's area and turned to his right, happily greeted by the sight of a park and more students of his age. Making his way there, Alfred made a checklist, in case he forgot anything. Not that he was a forgetful person. Or an absent-minded one. Actually, nevermind. He'd be lying.

He must've not shut his eyes for a moment , else, why would he bumped into a person? It startled him a bit and he stepped back. "Urgh, sorry, wasn't watching where I was going," Alfred straightened his posture and put on a sheepish smile. As usual, he ruffled his hair (something that Madeline noted, that Alfred would do when he's embarrassed), before looking at the person he bumped into.

"Oh, it's all right. I didn't mean to bump into you" Alfred heard a faint, '_oh, it's you'_ but he quickly dismissed it.

Well, maybe it was an exaggeration but those eyes were breathtaking. It reminded him of the boy he bumped into yesterday . Well, reminded him by a _lot._ It was the same round face with porcelain skin that had freckles sprayed over the face, accompanied by the button-up nose that was too alike to the boy's he had met yesterday. Her hair was the exact same length as the boy he met yesterday, not to mention the same shade!

Gazing into the other's eyes, Alfred wondered if the boy had an identical twin because this girl was _too _alike. Even her eyes were the same shade of that wonderful forest-sea green eyes he saw on the boy's face. Looking at the girl's face, he noted that both of them had quite a gender neutral face, just on the borderline of a young boy who turned 17 and the appearance of young girl. _They must've had it hard if they went to the same school, like Madeline and I,_ Alfred thought.

The only notable difference was that this girl had..._er...how do you put this without being offensive...eh...large...breasts..._, Alfred smacked himself for thinking about it.

He recalled the man he met last night. Allistair? Yeah, Allistair. The description he gave to Alfred fitted this girl and the boy perfectly. They must be twins, then. So , had the redhead yesterday wanted him to meet these two?

"I'm so sorry . Uh , look, I need to get away from here ,_ fast_ and I'm really sorry if I—" Alfred grabbed the girl's wrist, softly, just wanting to get her attention. The girl was a bit startled at his act , "Er, do you need anything?" she asked. _Oh shit, that accent. She's either English or Welsh, _Alfred concluded that he needed to stop talking to himself.

"Er, you see, I wanna go to the main office but I forgot to download and print the map out and I don't have a sense of direction..." his voice trailed off as he turned away from the girl in embarrassment. Blushing in humiliation, Alfred felt a tug on his hand and he glanced up at the girl, who only grinned at him. "I need to get away from here fast so I'll show you the way there! So, quick, follow me!" Alfred let go of the girl's wrist and she ran off, with Alfred trailing behind her.

Alfred ran up to the girl and was running past her. "So , mind telling me why you have to run away?" Alfred huffed and panted. The girl turned to him and furrowed her eyebrows, "Because my damn cousins are trying to drag me into a scheme and they're searching for me now! Christ, how do you run that fast without getting tired?!" she hissed at the blond who just grinned at her smugly.

The girl looked behind her and saw two men ,frantically searching for something. She gulped and fasten her pace , catching up with Alfred. "RUN FASTER" she pushed Alfred, who just got confused. Noticing his confusion, she hissed, "Just run! Faster!" .

They came to a halt when they arrived at another courtyard, surrounded by three blocks of buildings . The girl took Alfred's wrist by surprise, dragging him into an alley that served as a shortcut . Alfred was about to complain at how brash she was, if not for the ways her eyes seemed to be glowing in the dark (or it's just the reflection of light) just like the boy he met yesterday. "Stop gawking and start moving," the other blonde tugged on his wrist.

Alfred nodded, not wanting to deal with a fussy Brit. The alleyway was somewhat dimly lit. There were lights and bulbs but they seemed to be out of order as Alfred noted a student messing around with the wires that connected the bulbs together. There was another student that was screwing light bulbs and testing them out.

"Fucking piece of shit! How the fuck do you do this?!I'm not some technician but no, he just had to pick me to fix this shit!" the first student yelled in frustration. The two other students were the only other sounds that could be heard in the alleyway. The other sound besides the sound of their running was the cooing of the other student, who hummed while playing around with the light bulbs.

"You know what'd be great, these bulbs in the colour of red! They'd look like glowing tomatoes !Si...si..." so the other student, Alfred dubbed him 'Tomato Addict', probably wouldn't know that if the light bulbs were to change to the colour of red, it'd look like the alleyway was a haunted alley where thousands had been murdered. "Oi stupid, you do realise that it'll make this dumbass of an alley look like a creepy-as-fuck circus, right?! AH, fucking shit, almost got electrocuted," Alfred heard the other yell his exact thoughts.

"Antonio's the guy who's doing the light bulbs and Lovino's the bloke who yelled a moment ago. And before you say anything, it was their fault in the first place for spraying water on the electricity circuit while chasing around a sheep. I mean, spraying a sheep with water?! They could've use a net! You'd think they'd have common sense since they're Engineering Majors but no. Water?! Really?!" the girl in front of Alfred huffed in frustration.

"And...why was there a sheep in the first place...?" Alfred hesitated, not wanting to know if the reason was stupid. " Well, there's a mini farm where there are horses ,goats and cows. You know, domestic animals. They're more like pets to the university students here though. Those two idiots thought they were in a dream, which I can't really blame them since Gilbert managed to get them drunk to the point they couldn't differentiate between reality and dreams, so they thought, 'That sheep looks tasty, let's catch it and chase it with water to immobilise it!' and since you really don't care about what you do in a dream, they just went ahead"

"And a few hours ago, they woke up with a sheep in their arms and screamed so loud when they found out that it wasn't a dream. Gilbert was then to taking care of the farm for the next month" the girl explained, with snickers in between her words, as if she could tell the story over and over again.

"Is that why yesterday was chaos and there wasn't anybody for the freshmen to ask questions from?" Alfred kept with her pace, leaving the alley and almost reaching the main office's building. The other nodded with a shrug that confirmed his question. The other question he had in mind was how they got the sheep out of the field but he didn't dare to ask it since, when you're drunk, almost anything is possible.

"We're here"

Alfred stopped in his tracks, turning to the other blonde and reaching his right hand out. He grinned, "I don't think we've met yet , my name's Alfred . Freshman. Yours?" he waved it around. "Elizabeth, well, sometimes" Elizabeth shook his hand with a dropping smile. _What do you mean, sometimes? _Alfred wanted to ask, but couldn't , as the girl had ran off the moment he heard someone yell 'Elizabeth, you're here, aren't you?!'. Well, that was quite odd.

He was about to step into the main office when he heard a familiar voice, in an Australian accent, that yelled, "Oi, Alfred, seen a blondie with eyebrows as thick as mine?! Has an accent, you know! Er, green eyes and somewhat petite,like shorter than kiwi—" Alfred heard another person exclaiming "I'm not a kiwi! And not short!"—" Yeah, yeah, but have you seen them? Also, messy ,short hair and wearing a jacket. We're looking for our cousin, you see" the Australian frantically motioned his hands, as if they could describe the appearance of the cousin they were looking for.

Alfred paused for a moment, processing whatever description of the person, and came to a conclusion. _Oh, so these are her cousins,_ Alfred smiled. He pointed his thumb in the direction of where Elizabeth had ran off. "Elizabeth went that way" and with that, Jett and his cousin ran off with a "thank you!". _These people are odd_, Alfred shook his head._ Foreigners are weird,_ as if Alfred himself wasn't considered weird by his fellow peers from other nations.

With an obnoxious string of laughs, Alfred entered the building of the main office, getting ready for his first year in university.

* * *

I'm quite disappointed in how this one turned out, since I couldn't exactly find the right words. Urgh.


	3. Chapter 3

**Note :** Contains grammatical errors, wrong spellings ( er, I use British English spelling so ... but yeah, I might misspell them anyways) and possibility incorrect portrayal of the characters' identity

* * *

The library was quiet, a pleasant silence rather than an eerie one since it was still noon. The campus's library was large and was an entire building on its own, taking three floors and their collection of books were wide and in millions of numbers.

Alfred thanked the founder for being a rich-as-fuck man , since he didn't want to sit on the ground floor (where most of the students are lounging around) and would rather sit near the balcony of the second floor. Which was where he would be if the second floor was under renovation so he was stuck on the first floor.

He sat himself near the windows and plopped his workload on the table in front of him. Oh Lord, why did he even think of procrastinating his work to the last minute and torture himself . Alfred grimaced at the stack of papers, piled up in a non-orderly manner that would cause his mother to scold him about cleanliness .

"Okay, right, time to get this shit done," he muttered as he eyed the papers , not knowing which one to do. _Yep, should've done this earlier_, Alfred frowned. The American closed his eyes and waved his arm above the papers, stopped and grabbed one at random. _Please don't be a hard paper,_ he prayed silently to the God of Homework above that would probably not help him as a punishment for being an extreme procrastinator.

Slowly opening his eyes, he chanted mantras that consisted mostly of "fuckfuckfuckfuck".

Bless the God of Homework for listening to his prayers and not tormenting him with two hours of brain-wrecking for a single paper of possibly Physics ,rather, sending him the gift of an easy assignment for Fiction Writing class .

"YES FUCK YES" he screamed loud enough for the entire library to hear, pumped his fists into the air and stomped his feet. First of all, Alfred hadn't bothered to pay attention in any of his class mainly because Jett was in his Computer Science class. Fiction Writing wasn't any problem, he had made a number of friends in that class but the teacher bored him to death.

Alfred was still celebrating his happiness when he felt a pat on his shoulder and heard a tongue clicked from behind him. He stopped for a while to turn at the person behind him, greeted by a familiar pair of breathtaking green eyes beneath a pair of dark ,thick eyebrows that complimented the ever-changing shades of green of those eyes.

_Wait, is this Arthur or Elizabeth?,_ Alfred pondered for a moment, before deciding that he should just wing it. "Heya Art, whatcha' doin here?" he smiled at his British peer, who was scowling. Well, it might've been a scowl but Alfred just thought it was too cute to be a scowl.

Arthur gave him a gasp, "Unbelievable. You just screamed in the library and you ask that question. Jones, will you please, for fuck's sake, do your work quietly? I mean, that's Fiction Writing!" the Briton hissed. Alfred shrugged, raising his eyebrows. "Well, if you're happy, you celebrate, right?" he joked. "That's the stupidest reason I've ever heard for such a behaviour alike to yours," Arthur shook his head.

He glanced over to Alfred's paper, wondering which assignment it was, only to gasp once more and gave Alfred a look that could only mean, _you're unbelievable. _"Jones, this is due tomorrow! It'll take you hours to complete the assignment!" Arthur scolded. He wanted to slap the American for procrastinating but only gritted his teeth in frustration. Truly, he cared too much about his peer's work and often wondered how they lied with procrastination.

"What"

"Urgh, you're unbelievable, it's barely the second week of university and you're going to do this. I mean, if it was mid-semester , then sure, but we just _started_" the Briton emphasised at the last word. Alfred, on the other hand, was internally panicking sine he thought it was due next week and Alfred couldn't write or think fast to save his own life. Hell, he can't lie and could only think up of a convincing lie days after he was caught lying.

Alfred began to rummage through his pencil case, quickly finding a pen , ignoring the other papers or the mess he was making by flailing his arms around. "Fuck me running!" he swore under his breath as he found a pen and started reading the assignment.

_You are to work on a story that could be of any theme, but must be set in a fantastical setting. Fanfiction isn't allowed. You are to do this individually or write it with a partner. Your work must be 15 pages long or exceed 6000 words._

"I'm going to die," Alfred put his face in his hands, smiling grimly as he took the information in. 15 pages isn't much, nor is 6000 words, but hell, he's going to die if he was going to write this in one go and he was sure as hell that he can't write a story as fast as he could answer 20 Physics questions in an hour.

"Figuratively. Not literally. It's not that hard, honest. Look, the teacher said you could type it out ,I'll lend you mine," Arthur offered. His classmate looked so devastated that Arthur had felt guilty for wanting to slap him for procrastinating. "It's just downstairs, I'll be back in a jiffy if you want to borrow it," the Briton assured his classmate.

"That's not the problem. It's just...I can't think of a story immediately , y'know? Like, it'll take me hours just to come up with a theme, a name, the idea of the place and it'll take me days to complete the assignment. Fuck, why did I even take Fiction Writing?" Alfred groaned.

"Fiction Writing's not that bad, you know. I can help, if you want me to, since it does say you can partner with someone to work on it," Arthur suggested. Alfred glanced at his peer, "But haven't written you written one already? You look like the kind that would pass up the day after," he tilted his head. "That's because I am that kind of student. Stuck-up, yes, but I wouldn't have my workload piled up like yours is ,at the moment," he snickered.

"Oh ,shut up. But won't you get told off and your own work get a zero ,even if it's good?" Alfred asked. Arthur just grinned, "I have my ways, grasshopper," chuckling softly. Alfred's jaw dropped in disbelief, "Don't tell you're going to bribe the teacher?!" he exclaimed. "I never knew you had it in you!"

"What?! What kind of bullshit is that?! I do _not_ bribe! Heavens, haven't you gotten a look at the teacher?!" Arthur hissed once more. Alfred was taken aback and tried to think. How did the teacher look like? Okay, wait, he remembered seeing red hair.

Red hair..., oh yeah! Thick eyebrows, too! Oh._Oh._ He had Allistair Kirkland as his teacher and he didn't bother paying attention to even recognise the man as his teacher. Come to think of it...

Thick eyebrows. Alfred eyed Arthur, who was just wondering what Alfred was trying to do, only to grin when he knew what Alfred was doing. "Come on, lad, you can do it. How am I going to do it?" Arthur smirked.

_Right, let's see. Thick eyebrows, the same green eyes except Arthur's sometimes change colour ,though it's mostly a forest-sea green mix. Same surname a fucking minute, _Alfred shot upwards. Arthur clapped his hands together, "Bravo, took you long enough, didn't think you remember the teacher!" Arthur congratulated his friend.

All Alfred could do was drop his jaw again, "You're his _sister?!_" and Arthur just stopped clapping and gave him a look of disbelief. "What? You're not?" Alfred asked. Arthur was still scowling, before admitting, "He's my father, Christ, I thought you would've come up with the 'child' idea first,".

"What"

"What what"

"What"

"What do you mean by what?!" Arthur shook his head. "All right, I'm getting my laptop, I'll be back in 5 minutes, you better come up with the name of the main character if it's not in first view," Arthur dashed off to the ground floor, leaving a shocked Alfred to come up with a name.

* * *

"All right, here's the laptop. Let's get down to business—" "—to defeat the Huns?" "to defeat that failing grade of yours if you don't stop procrastinating and start working, git" Arthur pinched Alfred's ear with a frown. "O wow o wow okay! I get it!" Alfred winced.

Arthur smiled smugly, letting go of Alfred's ears before sitting beside him. " Have you come up with a name?" the Briton asked. Alfred pondered , not sure whether his choice of name was good enough to please Arthur since it was pretty sure a stupid name to give to a person. "...Hero?" he smiled ,unsure if the name was good.

"Hero, seriously? Hero?! Can't you come up with a better name?!" Arthur almost yelled. "Err...no...come on, just help me, why do names matter anyways?!" Alfred whined. "Well, would you read a story that revolves around a main character whose name is Shithead?" Arthur countered. Alfred laughed, "I would, it'd be hilarious," Arthur rolled his eyes. "Of course it'd be hilarious but it won't be suitable for a fantasy story unless Shithead is the character's nickname,"

"But Hero's the only one in my mind right now," Alfred groaned. He put on the best puppy face he could do (which had managed to save his ass once on the occasion of him accidentally spilling coffee on Madeline's homework) and hoped that it would work on his friend.

Arthur's face seemed to soften ,maybe out of pity at the very, _very ,_absolutely devastated Alfred (score!) and he sighed. "Okay, so do you need help with a plot?" Arthur gave up on pestering his friend to change the name of the character to something less obnoxious, he had quite the soft spot for such a face.

"Er, yeah, all I can think of at the moment is saving a town because y'know, Hero," Alfred tapped his fingers, staring at the empty documented projected on the screen of Arthur's laptop. "The typical plot? Dad doesn't like typical plots. He loves plot twists and I recall, he failed his entire class last year for the same assignment because they used the typical heroic act of a hero saving a town or something. I mean, it's fiction writing! Come up with something _out of the box! "_ Arthur exclaimed.

Alfred thought hard but couldn't come up with something. "I still think Hero needs to be a Hero, but maybe not saving a town?" he suggested to the student next to him. "Well, saving people is still good but can it not be a prince saving a princess or some vigilante saving a town from disaster? Or maybe not a cliché of a peasant becoming a knight after saving a noble?" Arthur said.

_Click._

"That's it!" Alfred snapped his fingers. "What?" Arthur wondered. Alfred grinned, "How about Hero being a peasant that found a witch and saved the witch from the villagers and ran away together?!" he clapped . "That doesn't sound bad at all, still a bit cliché but dad could overlook that aspect and see the twist instead," Arthur smiled.

"Okay then! So, about the witch's name?" Alfred wrote the characteristics on a sheet of notepad paper. "...do you want it to be as awful as Hero's or do you want an actual name, worthy of an actual human being to bear the name?" Arthur leant back into his seat. "As awful as Hero's. I want this to be as cliché as it can be, actually,"

"...Dark," Alfred wanted to give Arthur a look of disbelief but stopped as he heard the other laugh._Holy fuck, that's a cute laugh_, Alfred thought. "What? You wanted a cliché name so 'Dark'. You know, Dark magic," Arthur snorted, before chuckling. _Dude,that laugh is cute as fuck,_ Alfred wanted to say but deciding that now isn't the best time for compliments and it was the best time to save his own ass from a huge downfall of grades.

"All right, so Hero and Dark. Dark Hero. God, can the names be any more cliché even when the story isn't?" Alfred laughed as well. Arthur shrugged, before pointing to the laptop screen. " Okay, let's stop fooling around , first things first—" "I'm the realest" "—Alfred, I swear, we need to stop laughing," Arthur chuckled again.

"You have a cute laugh,though, like,really cute laugh," Alfred blurted. He didn't know why Arthur was quiet for a while,with a light blush on his face, before replaying what he had just said. "Er..." Alfred toyed with a pen, not sure how to bring the topic of homework back into their conversation.

"No, no, it's fine.I'm not used to compliments, so thank you," Arthur laughed again. _Shiiiiiiit, how did you get such a cute laugh,_Alfred wondered. "So back to homework. Have you come up with a setting?" Alfred shook his head at Arthur's question. "Then, how about...oh, yes, have you played Skyrim before? It's a mainstream game so ..." Alfred nodded. "Great,then!" Arthur smiled.

With that, both started talking about their adventures and experience while playing Skyrim. The conversation led to another about a game called Persona 4,where both agreed that Yosuke was the best character in the entire game. Which led to Persona 3, which eventually led to a conversation about Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus because of the Greek and Roman mythology-based personas. With that, they had wasted almost 45 minutes.

But during the conversation, Alfred had noted how beautiful was Arthur's smile, and how the Briton looked cute when smiling and laughing at Alfred's misadventures of accidentally getting into a fight with Death in Persona 3. Arthur looked really,_really_ ,amazing with that smile. Alfred imagined how he would look like when the Briton smiled with his green eyes showing.

By the 43rd minute, Arthur brought the topic of homework back and by then, Alfred had managed to come up with a proper setting for the assignment and began working on the introductions.

"Oh,oh, I got the perfect introduction! How about we start with, '_Keyren was the name of a small village in the kingdom of Forphtrot, far beyond the reach of help of the knights if any trouble was upon or approaching it. Despite being in such a kingdom, it was isolated due to the villagers' wish of not being disturbed and left to their own devices. The village was self-governed by a wicked leader hat had skulls hung around their neck. The skulls, were the remains of the last troop of knights that had stumbled upon the village and without a second though, the villagers attacked and killed the knights," _Alfred hummed.

"It'd be better if we left out the second sentence that contained the word 'skulls'," Arthur contemplated. "Then after that, we talk about the village a bit more, not the brutality though, rather, how the villagers go by with their lives," Arthur pointed out. "Then , we bring Hero into the story,"

"All right,!" Alfred exclaimed. He began to type excitedly, :

_The villagers weren't afraid of the wicked man. Rather, they supported him in the mass murder of any stranger that stumbled upon their village._

"That sounds a bit like the English village that Holly lived in, if you're familiar with The Power of Five," Arthur hummed. Alfred was surprised, _Arthur knows Power of Five ?!_

"I've read it before. One of my favourites," Alfred laughed. He continued typing,

_The villagers went by with their lives by relying on magic to generate light and warm themselves up. Sometimes, they use magic to fasten up the process of the ripening of their crops. They don't spend money. They just do things out of the whim using the barter system. It was simple. It was fair. But Hero did not think so._

_Hero was a young girl_

"Oh, you should've called her Heroine, if you want it to be right," Arthur frowned. Alfred smiled, "You said your dad love plot twists, and besides , there are reasons, you know," . "Suit yourself. I'll just proofread and help you out with the ideas,"

"Where was I? Oh right," Alfred muttered, continuing his story again.

_Hero was a young girl who didn't approve of the village's norms. She grimaced every time her name was said because it reminded her of how much her parents hated their first born being a girl. Hero didn't mind the name, it was just a reminder of how painful and toxic her parents were._

_In the village of Keyren, magic was called 'Science'. The assistance of fairies and trolls to take care of their crops and their stalls were simple guardings. Which was stupid to Hero. Why? Because 'Magic' is forbidden in the village and the 'Magic' they were talking about was actually science._

_Science. The knowledge of your surroundings in logical terms. For instance, photosynthesis. The villagers would behead anyone who said any scientific terms because to them, it's the reverse._

_In her village, Magic was Science, Science was Magic. Witches, warlocks and wizards to the villagers were actually physicians, scientists and doctors to the rest of the Kingdom of Forphtrot and to Hero herself._

"Oh, so that's why," Arthur smiled. Alfred found himself liking that smile more.

_How did she know about this? Because her best friend was an actually daughter of a scientist. She knew it was a taboo to go out of the village but she couldn't help seeing a distressed girl of her own age, hiding from guards that were hunting her down. That was where she had known about how awful her village was and how wonderful the outside world was._

"My hands need to rest, but I'll tell you what to type, okay?" Alfred pushed the laptop to Arthur and he doubted that the Briton needed to listen to him to write nicely. He knew that Arthur was an amazing writer and storyteller , since Jett didn't stop complaining about how poetic Arthur was (which was one of the ways he got curious and asked if Arthur was Jett's relative and the answer was, 'My cousin')

It was only the two on the first floor. Everyone else was downstairs since they were lazy to go up. Nobody had disturbed or bothered them. It was only the sound of the working air conditioners, the beating of each other's heart, the sound of pressed keys of the keyboard, the sound of two people breathing, the sound of the laptop ,functioning, and the faint sound of the chatters of the students below.

It was nice.

Alfred had decided that maybe being partners with Arthur for a project the whole year wouldn't be bad , especially if it's going to be this fun.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Written on a whim because I'm finally free of exams until next week where I have to study my ass off again for an exam in October. So ,yeah, basically, I haven't been updating much because the first chapter was written right before an exam and I decided to write the second during an exam and you know what happened. I got a fucking C in Science and ERT. So I waited until the last exam's over ,which was only yesterday and I just wrote this ..two hours ago. So it's not proofread.

Also, I'm using him for Arthur and her for Elizabeth until Alfred puts the pieces together and find out that Arthur and Elizabeth are actually the same person. It's Alfred's POV but I'm not doing it in first person view since it'd be too awkward for me to write such a thing. So yeah, it'd be like this until Arthur Elizabeth Kirkland decides to tell Alfred straight up. Then, it'd be gender neutral terms.

Another thing about their relationship . No, it won't be love at first sight. It's gradually falling in love kind of love. The eventual falling in love. The one that started off as friendship but then they got to know each other more and more and they fall in love kind of love.

Lastly, to **DespairinglyLuckyYou,** FF . Net doesn't give me the option to use the Beta Reader feature unless I have 5 stories or chapters of all of my stories so I might have to mass-produce chapters or we can use Google Docs if you're still up to be a beta reader / OTL


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **Well, here it goes. It's proofread by my sister (hoorah for blackmail). It's another Arthur chapter and not Elizabeth. As usual, **not an expert on genderfluidity (since I'm pansexual ,so basically, Alfred's preferences would be based off of my own, I'm the only resource for pansexuality in my own clique with the exception of my best mate. Sobs). I'm not a university student, I'm barely 15 so EVERYTHING RELATED UNIVERSITY OR COLLEGE IS WAY OFF and based off what I normally observe. Which is ...well...nevermind. Apologies for misinterpretation of any sexuality, gender identity, spelling error (it's British English,by the way,but I might misspell them too), grammatical error and any mistakes, really.**

* * *

The air was extremely cold that morning, after a heavy rainfall that had tuned out Alfred's alarm clock and if it had not been for his roommate that dragged him out of the bed, he would've been sleeping in and missing his classes.

The bench he sat on was undoubtedly dry but the weather was too cold that Alfred swore his ass could freeze if it didn't warm the bench up. And thank God, it did. But it didn't mean the rest of bench didn't gain heat because he didn't want to touch _any_ other part of the bench. Curse the school authorities for getting metal benches and not wooden ones.

His first class was in the afternoon and it didn't seem like the day would be getting any hotter than at least three degrees and he was damn sure that it'd rain again in an hour or so. But fuck that, he's not going to freeze his balls off !

Alfred wore three layers of clothing, at the very least, it stopped him from shivering too much. A white undershirt, a red plaid shirt that was buttoned halfway down. Over those, he kept himself extra warm with a bomber jacket that he inherited from his grandfather since he was 5 years old. Even so, someone should damn well invent a kind of fabric that'd be enough to warm your legs without having to wear three pairs of trousers during such a weather.

As a way to warm his body, he had bought a cup of coffee and he was oh-so grateful that the cafeteria had stocked up on coffee, though he shouldn't have been so surprised, considering that university students were like zombies even on normal, school days.

He sipped the coffee, staring at the paper he held in his hands. It was his - no ,_ their_- Fiction Writing assignment. The one he had wrote with Arthur the day before and he had to hand it in today, but class doesn't begin in a few hours. So he had time, to read it over and over again. And no matter how many times he had read the story they wrote, it seemed both ridiculous and yet, praise-worthy. Well, Alfred's ideas and parts were ridiculous while Arthur's were praise-worthy.

"_Hero and Dark snapped the branches at the same time, watching the trapped pixies escaping the branches. Soon, they were surrounded by colours of light that were emitted from the wings of the pixies. The pixies were giggling with joy and flying around them in glee. 'Thank you, thank you!' Hero heard them exclaimed. She was extremely proud of herself, helping these pixies. Dark had never seen pixies and were extremely cautious when she first saw them but seeing her best friend laughing happily after helping these pixies, she couldn't help but smile and chuckle at the thought of her, a professor's daughter, a girl that believed in knowledge that worked in theories, had assisted a group of pixies in escaping their supposed 'prison cell'. Without a doubt, Dark was sure that if someone were to ask what she couldn't live without, she would say, 'My father, my mother's heirloom, knowledge, and lastly, I could never imagine a world without my best mate, Hero'. Hero truly lived up to her name, which left Dark wondering, how she managed to live 12 years of her life, without magic, without these wonders and without a best mate to share these memories that were deemed childish and immature in the eyes of an adult,"_

Alfred didn't want to take credit for Arthur's writing. His writing was beautiful, descriptive and best of all, Arthur's writing was able to bring you into the fictional world and made you believe that you were apart of such a fantasy.

Alfred's writing on the other hand... was shit. Honestly, he didn't know why he took Fiction Writing. He was , without a doubt, interested in writing stories but the way he wrote was too simple, and way too rushing. When he wrote the story with Arthur yesterday, the other had complimented his creativity and said that Alfred's writing style was more suitable to action scenes, or to be more accurate, any kind of story that involved fighting , superheroes , or just daily-life heroes that were taking out the antagonists.

"Careful, you'll drop that cup if you keep staring at that blasted paper," Alfred was startled as he heard an accented, familiar voice speaking while a force was pushing his cup up to avoid it from spilling onto his jeans. He turned his head to see Arthur's brilliant green eyes staring back at him with an uncertain expression.

"Er...thanks," he muttered, gulping down his hot coffee until the last sip."Fuck!" he yelled as his throat felt like it was burning. Arthur was snickering at Alfred's antics. However, the Briton couldn't stand watching his dear friend suffering from a burning sensation in his throat and opened his bag, found a bottle of water and passed it to Alfred.

Alfred, who completely forgot about how hot the coffee was, immediately took the bottle into his grasps, dropping their assignment onto the ground without giving a fuck if it would get dirty. He drank half the bottle to Arthur's amusement as he gulped the water within seconds. _Holy shit, thank fucking God,_ he praised.

Arthur grinned widely, "Satisfied, Jones? You owe me a cup of tea," he picked up the assignment. "Be grateful that I was here and stopped you from spilling coffee over those expensive-looking jeans, gave you the salvation of cold water and won't be murdering you for dirtying the assignment," Arthur murmured , taking a seat beside Alfred.

Alfred passed the bottle back to the boy besides him, "Well, class doesn't start in a couple of hours and I saved the file anyways so I could just print it again. Besides, why are you here and why do I owe you a cup of tea?," Alfred mused.

"The answer to your first question, I'm here because this is a campus and I live here, I'm free to go anywhere I like and Dad decided I should do some stupid errands for him , and I passed by , saw you, and saved you from humiliating yourself because you were gawking at a paper. Second question, I just gave you a bottle of cold water! You drank half of it empty so you owe me a cup! A cup's equivalent to half a bottle, you know?" Arthur hissed, crossing his arms once more.

Alfred frowned, "That's nonsense. Besides, why do you even _have_ a bottle of cold water?! It's a fucking cold day and drinking cold water'll make you colder!" he stated. Arthur rolled his eyes. "It _was_ warm water, fool. But of course, seems like you forgot your Science that this warm water lost its heat and the goddamn cold weather made it cool!" Arthur huffed, twirling the bottle with his fingers.

"Oh," Alfred muttered. "Well, how much would that cup of tea cost , then?" he asked, taking a wallet from the pockets of his jeans. Arthur hummed in success, " A few dollars, not more than $5 on the campus. Cheaper than coffee, if I remember," Alfred clicked his tongue. The American handed over five dollars to the other , who just looked puzzled at Alfred's act.

"What? You said I owe you a cup of tea, so here!" Alfred tilted his head in confusion, only that his action as mirrored by the other teen. The other was just staring at him for a few seconds and in the end, both had gaping mouths as they were trying to understand the current situation.

Silence overtook them for a moment, before it was broken by Arthur's loud gasp of "Oh!". He pushed away Alfred's hand, shaking his head. "No, that wasn't what I meant! A cup of tea isn't equivalent to a half a bottle of water in terms of price! I meant in volume. _ ._ Christ, I'd be making a profit off of you like this," he laughed.

Alfred wanted to smack himself the second time that day. "So, how am I supposed to pay you back, huh? " he put the money back into his wallet, glancing back at the green-eyed Arthur . "Just make me one. Pour me a cup. Or just give me a tea sachet, since I doubt you've ever stirred a cup of tea," which Alfred winced since it was true. He had drank tea before, since his father was such an Anglophile that he was surprised that his mother was a Canadian.

"Tea sachet , it is then," he whistled. Arthur just laughed and holy hell, Alfred was getting fond of it. Arthur's laugh was like a bunch of rabbits trying to hop onto each other , or frolicking in a field of flowers. Wait, that seemed odd.

Then it came to him. Since Arthur and Elizabeth were extremely identical twins (except for Elizabeth's body figure, obviously), did they have the same laugh? The blond shade of their hairs were the same if Alfred recalled them correctly, since the two were never in the same place. The second time he had met Elizabeth was in Physics class, and he was amused by how her eyes worked the same way as Arthur's did. Forever the colour of green but never the same shade of green if her emotions didn't stay the same. The Kirkland twins' eyes were like kaleidoscopes. Forest green if curious, apple green if happy and emerald green if grateful , and Alfred had time to notice how those eyes worked in Psychology class ,which he shared with Arthur and Elizabeth.

Then again, Arthur and Elizabeth seemed to be taking different Psychology classes or keep switching with each other since they were never in the same class.

"You're staring at me," Arthur's voice brought him back to reality. "Oh, sorry, didn't mean to. Was just remembering something," Alfred explained. "Well, it must've been a happy event since you were smiling while staring at me. I swear Jones, if you keep doing that, Mei or Lili will pass by and just assume that you have a crush on me," Arthur raised an eyebrow, while snorting at the thought of Lili bringing around a camera and snapping photographs of people she paired together (in a romantic manner) like a spy that excelled in the field of stealth.

The Liechtensteiner was amusing, really. Her appearance seemed that of an innocent girl who would blush at the mention of anything sexual or romantic but her personality and actual demeanour was the downright opposite of her appearance. She would hesitate in answering a question in class or a normal conversation but when it's about the people she paired romantically, she'd go muttering curses if the supposed pair wasn't a couple.

"You keep calling me Jones today, why, _Kirkland?"_ he smirked. Arthur smiled, "Last name basis, huh? Well , then Jones, last name basis is a form of respect and sometimes , mockery," he raised his eyebrows at the same time. Alfred clapped his hands as a sign of challenge.

"Oh ho ho, mockery, huh? What did I do to deserve that , Kirkland?" he taunted in a teasing manner. Arthur's eyes strayed to the empty cup of coffee on the arm of the bench, "That, Jones. I can't call you Alfred, else, it'd be an embarrassment to King Alfred the Great, " Arthur faked a string of sobs. "You should be embarrassed to bear his name . Your namesake was such a pleasant man to be around with!" Arthur huffed, but broke into a fit of laughter soon after.

Alfred, who thought 'why the hell not?', went along with the joke, murmuring curses under his breath, "Oh dear, it seems that I have forgotten about my manners, Sir Kirkland!" he let his head fall into his hands. "Sir Kirkland? Seriously, Alfred? _Sir?_ That's the best you could come up with?" Arthur punched the other on the shoulder.

Alfred took that as a chance to retort the Briton, " What about you, Kirkland? You are unfit to have King Arthur as your namesake! Such a behaviour like yours is unacceptable and a disgrace to all bearers of the name Arthur!" he huffed.

They didn't talk for a couple of seconds, which worried Alfred. Maybe he went too far? Then again, Arthur did the same. But by the 10th second, Alfred began to laugh and so did Arthur. Alfred didn't know why Arthur was laughing but he knew why _he_ was.

"That was the worst imitation of a British accent I've ever done and I'm not sure if it was even convincing! God ,I don't think I'll be able to imitate accents, "Alfred said, in between his laughs. It seemed that Arthur agreed to his statement, as he nodded his head, trying to keep himself calm rather than start to laugh once more.

"Oh ,come on ,Alfred! That wasn't the worst one I've heard. The worst would be coming from my stepfather , Lord, yours would be a bit convincing if you're talking formally, but it can beat my stepfather's horrid imitation anytime,anyday," Arthur replied, wiping a tear from his eye after laughing too hard.

"On the other hand, I have to say that you Americans are too casual , really, don't you want to try fucking up the minds of others by making them confused? That's what my cousins in Asia did!" Arthur snickered, slapping his thigh while trying to hold his laughter.

Alfred coughed, probably a sign that he should stop laughing before his throat hurts more. He glanced at his watch, seeing as there were only 3 hours left before the class starts. "Hey, I think Jett bought some tea the other day and left it in the refrigerator, so if I still owe you, wanna come over?" Alfred suggested. "We still have 3 hours left before we run to class,"

Arthur clicked his tongue and tapped his left index finger on the arm of the chair , contemplating whether to accept or decline Alfred's offer. Should he go for the tea? But he just met Alfred for over two weeks! Then again, the tea...

"Jett's still in the room. He's working his ass off of a homework ," the American said. "Typical of him, back in high school he'd chased me around to help him with his projects," Arthur snorted. The Briton whipped his head to Alfred's direction, tilted his head and said, "I would love to have a cup of cheap tea that would substitute the existence of half my bottle of water that you have drank, that my cousin Jett had bought from ,probably, Walmart,"

* * *

3 hours were long enough for them to play the Xbox that Alfred had brought. The room was large enough for 4 people to stay in but because of the furniture and the belongings of the residents themselves, only 2 could sleep in the room comfortably while the rest would have to sleep on the floor. But thankfully, the school authorities thought that putting a television in each room deemed appropriate (and it wasn't a tube television either, it was a goddamned LCD, but the screen wasn't that large, but wide enough to enjoy the high-definition of a game while playing it) .

Anyways, Arthur had yelled at Jett to enrage the Australian and it managed to make him complete his work faster than Alfred could write down a paragraph. When Jett had finished his work, he slapped Arthur on the back for not trying to come up with a less aggressive method of making him work faster. Soon after, Arthur found a stack of tea and tucked them all in the pockets of the jacket, since ,clearly, Jett bought it in case Arthur wanted to hang out there and Alfred was sure as hell that it was unlikely for him to drink tea any time soon.

Of course, Alfred blessed his gaming skills when he won all the matches in the game that he had played with both Arthur and Jett who kept having ties. By the third game, Arthur eventually went back to drinking his cup of tea that seemed unlimited as it kept getting refilled every 5 minutes. That and Arthur kept criticising the game.

By the third hour of their game, Arthur was startled by the sudden vibration in his pockets and screamed for Alfred while dumping the cups into the sink. Alfred didn't budge since he was too distracted by the game so Arthur had to drag him out of the room, much to the dismay of the dishevelled looking American who refused to let go of the controller.

The Cola-dumping on Alfred's head (which Jett promised to buy a new bottle of Cola) managed to bring Alfred to the reality of university life and Alfred rushed everything, yelling curses loudly. Not long, Arthur smirked at the sight of a panicking Alfred but was dragged by Alfred by the sleeve.

They ran as fast as they could, muttering swears to each other , while Jett's shout of 'Godspeed!' was faintly heard.

It was a record for the both of them. They arrived at the classroom's corridor within 10 minutes (which usually took them 20 minutes), panting heavily for breath as they slouched and bended their knees. Arthur combed Alfred's hair since impression makes impact while Alfred helped Arthur with his clothes. It didn't take them long ,considering that Alfred brings hair gel with him everywhere, all the time.

After Alfred was done with Arthur's hair (which was as untameable as the sea) , he pondered for a moment before dipping his finger in the gel. He lifted it up and pointed to the Briton. Arthur was confused by Alfred's act, but took only a second to realise that the American was pointing to his eyebrows.

"No!" he whacked Alfred's hand while the other just laughed. "You sure? You need to tame them, or maybe, they're as untameable as your hair," Alfred snickered. But honestly, Arthur's hair was adorable. He wasn't sure if there wasn't any that would like to ruffle that tuff of hair that seemed like a spiky mop. Maybe delinquents.

Arthur glared at Alfred straight in the eye, threatening the other about the statement. "I'll tell Dad what you said about the eyebrows and there goes your fucking A for discipline and morality, and Dad's respect and tolerance for you," he scoffed.

"Well, maybe I can complain about how big yours are and you can complain how big my Florida is," Alfred winked. Oh hell, he loved infuriating Arthur despite knowing him for only two weeks. Arthur's frowned deepened and his face turned red with all the blood that rushed to his face. "W-what the Hell , Alfred?! Why would you go _there?!_" Arthur shrieked.

However, his frown didn't deepen, rather , Arthur grinned. "Oh really, Alfred? If you're the humanoid personification of the United States of America, then you won't have a dick. You have a dildo. Hm, if I recall correctly, America bought Florida from Spain so you're telling me you don't have a cock but a dildo in the place of one, " Arthur countered. Alfred groaned in defeat, "How come you always win?!"

"You don't _provoke_, git. Provoking causes the other party to enrage but a more effective ending like a punch to your face if I didn't have self-control, also, with a father like mine, you know how he is, how could you not _win?_" Arthur mused. Alfred waved him off, opening the door of the classroom, "Shut up, okay! I get it ,I get it! It's not like I owe you any more cup of tea, guv'nah," he poorly imitated a Londoner's accent.

But Arthur didn't retort back. Instead, he heard a shuffling. He turned around , only to find a frantic Arthur who's panicking and digging around in his bag. "Arthur...er, problem?" Alfred coughed to catch Arthur's attention. The other looked up at him, with alarmed eyes. His mouth moved slowly, opening and closing. "Dude, I don't know what you're saying," Alfred stated. Arthur's eyes looked inside of the bag, then back to staring into Alfred's.

"Where's the paper?"


End file.
